


Phantom

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, Curses, Depression, Divorce, F/M, HP: EWE, Loss of Powers, Post-Hogwarts, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill brings something extra back from Egypt; Fleur has to deal with the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bill

**Author's Note:**

> Written for THD's My Plot Bunnies challenge on the HPFC forums. The original story idea belongs to THD, Victoire's ability is modeled on Rogue from X-Men's, and the characters all belong to JKR.
> 
> Warning for depression, discussion of abortion, and self-hatred.

_There are worse things in life than working in northern Egypt,_ Bill Weasley told himself. He was usually an even-tempered man, but at the moment he couldn't help being disgruntled. The sun irritated the scars running down his face, the sand had breached all of his belongings and settled into every crevice of his clothes, and his skin reacted worse than usual to the anti-sunburn charm. It could've been worse, though; he could've still been at war or in Siberia or at a Celestina Warbeck concert. Instead, he would soon come home in an indeterminate time period to an exasperated Fleur Weasley—and oh how it still charmed him, even after a year of marriage, that her name was now Fleur Weasley rather than Delacour. Bill had been stuck in Egypt for a month now and was very close to getting out, if everything worked out well on the final tomb enchantment layer.

"Oi! I need help over here! Bill?" Leanne, the bane of Bill's happy marriage, yelled, and Bill reluctantly ambled over to her from under the water tent's covers. The sun's blinding heat hit him as soon as he stepped into its rays, and Bill told himself once again that his stay in Egypt was only temporary.

He had once loved the sun, loved the Nile, loved Egypt in all its glory and infamy, but that was in his late teens and early twenties. He'd been untethered and adventurous. He'd grabbed life by the wand tip and made it take him to all the wonders of the world. And then he met Fleur Delacour and his perspective shifted, narrowed, until he could only see her in his future. She'd grabbed his heart like he'd once grabbed life, and she'd never let him go. And he'd never left.

Even this journey to Egypt and to the past didn't tempt him. The pyramids with their long-forgotten legends and secrets and curses didn't call to him. Their siren's call was muted to him forever, up until his protégé had grabbed him by his now-short hair and dragged him back to Egypt to unlock what could be the greatest find in modern history: Hsekiu's tomb. Of all the magical rulers in Egyptian history, his reign had been the bloodiest and the longest. It was said that he lived for three hundred years, whether through faulty record keeping or dark magic.

Leanne was—by far, as anyone who knew her well remarked—too ambitious for a former Hufflepuff, and when she had discovered the tomb in the location Hsekiu's was rumored to be, she brushed it off to the goblins as a tomb of a king's tenth son. It was better to be mistaken than to be left on the last page of the credits pages, and if the goblins got a hold on the tomb, she would have been left only with a small promotion and a pat on her back while the goblins took control of the operation. Leanne was young, eager, and vindictive enough to grab on and not let go. Bill didn't blame her one bit, except for when she needed help breaking the enchantments and had only her former mentor to call upon for help.

"Bill! Bill!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming, just a moment," Bill grumbled and broke into the fastest jog the temperature allowed. "What is it?" he asked when he came up behind her.

"I've opened it! I need a second to watch my back."

Bill agreed and they slowly descended into the pit. He stood directly behind her, wand out, waiting for latent enchantments to fire curses at them. He was running through them in his mind—funny, how after two years of desk work at the London Gringotts he could still easily call them up—and he was ready for anything. Anything except for silence and a lack of spells.

"It couldn't have been that easy," Bill said, looking around and not dropping his guard even slightly.

"Maybe they wore out over time? It's been centuries," Leanne asked, looking hopeful.

"We study these tombs for exactly the opposite reason," Bill said, breaking into teaching mode. "The ancient Egyptians' spells never wore out, unlike ours. They never decayed, never ruined, never fell apart until the caster wished them to. They continued even after the death of the casters. We don't know why. Maybe magic was stronger back then? Maybe the people themselves were stronger? But—"

"I know, I know," Leanne said. Bill glared weakly at her, but she only smiled and opened the door leading to the tomb's main room. "And maybe, this will be the most important discovery of my life."

The room was circular and faintly lit with Leanne's light charm. Small tables surrounded the walls, on top of which were various vases and holding bottles. Bill sent sticking charms on a few of them just in case. In the very middle of the room was an elaborate sarcophagus.

"Wow," Leanne whispered. She started slowly dusting off the walls and surrounding items.

Bill stood back and let her do her work. He knew how it felt, and he knew he'd get his fame for being here with Leanne if it was the legendary tomb, but more than anything else, he wanted to go home. Back to Fleur, back to England.

That was when the earthquake began, first as small, barely noticeable shakes, then huge rumbles in the cave. "Leanne, get out!" Bill yelled, casting a bubble charm to hopefully preserve the room. "Let's go!"

"But I need to—"

"You need to live!" _And so do I,_ he thought, thinking of Fleur. He pushed her in front of him and they ran out of the room. His whole body suddenly felt like it was on fire as something struck him from behind.

And then he felt nothing.

.

Slowly, Bill came back to consciousness. "Ow," he muttered, putting a hand to his forehead. "What the bloody hell happened?" He opened his eyes and saw a blurry room. After a few blinks, his vision came back and he realized he was in the Isis Center, the aptly-named Cairo wizarding hospital.

He sat up in bed and mentally and physically evaluated himself. He wasn't hurt. He wasn't maimed. His body was whole. But something was wrong.

The door opened and Leanne walked in. "Oh, Bill," she cried. The teacups she was holding were promptly dropped onto a table and she hugged his neck. "I'm so, so, glad you're okay."

"What happened?" he asked.

"There was the earthquake at the tomb—do you remember that?" Bill nodded and she continued. "You were hit by a falling vase when we were rushing out. Your charm faded as soon as you were knocked unconscious and I was so worried that the room would cave in, but we were fine. I dragged you out and got Slipgrip to floo you here. I'm so sorry for forcing you back to Egypt. It's all my fault."

Bill patted her hand and tried not to panic. "What was the curse on the vase?"

She looked at him in obvious confusion. "What curse? There was no curse. The Healers checked you out."

"But I feel—" Bill paused. Perhaps he felt strange because of shock or because of some kind of head injury? But his gut screamed no, and he'd learned to trust it in the curse-breaking business. "I'd like to see my medical scans. Could you call a Healer in?"

Two hours of rescanning, rechecking, and tests under wizard, goblin, and house elf (of all beings) magic cleared him of all known curses. There was no magical signature affecting him, and there hadn't been in the last twenty-four hours, except for Leanne's. He was fine. He was whole. Alone in his room, Bill closed his eyes and looked inside himself with deep concentration. He didn't feel normal, but he didn't feel like he wasn't himself, either. In fact, he knew something was very, very wrong. It felt like there was something there, like an extra limb that he couldn't see or move but was still aware of. And slowly, he was forgetting what normal was like.

Perhaps this was normal, after all, and the head injury had only skewed his perceptions.

.

The first thing he did when he got to England was check into St. Mungo's Spell Damage ward and send an owl to Fleur saying not to visit him. He couldn't say he was okay, but he did tell her it probably wasn't anything serious. According to the goblins, the sarcophagus actually belonged to a minor noble with weak blood ties to the royal family. He wouldn't have been able or knowledgeable enough to create or pay for top-notch curses on his grave.

Six hours and four irate Healers later, St. Mungo's kicked him out with the declaration that he was in perfect health and that he shouldn't waste their time with his nonexistent problems. With nothing else he could do, Bill headed home. He'd missed Shell Cottage while in Egypt more than he'd ever missed the Burrow in his life. And he'd missed the woman inside it most of all. The woman who ran into his arms and hugged him tight when she heard the sound of his apparition.

"I've missed you so much," Fleur said without letting him free. "Please, tell me you're done with Egypt."

"I am," Bill replied. The strangeness under his skin told him Egypt wasn't quite done with him, though. "I might be cursed," he said to Fleur at the dinner table after she shoved a bowl of soup into his hands. "The Healers told me I'm not, and I think I'm slowly believing them, but when I woke up, I truly felt like something was wrong with me. All the tests have come up negative."

Fleur sipped from her wineglass and stared into his eyes. "Do you believe you're cursed?"

"Yes," Bill said.

"Could it be dangerous?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Fleur said. She came to Bill's side of the table, took the spoon from Bill's hands, leaned down and kissed him. "Okay."

.

A month later, it was Fleur that went in for testing at St. Mungo's, and Bill was happier than he'd ever been when the tests came up positive. He was going to be a father.

"Oh, Fleur," he whispered, tracing her stomach.

Then he went to get tested again. The Healers kicked him out again. He tested negative again.

And finally, Bill decided that he was fine. He was normal again and he was the happiest man in the world.

.

They didn't realize it at first, but their child was conceived on the night Bill came back from Egypt. Even if they had realized it, they wouldn't have attached the needed importance to the timing. They might have even called it romantic.

.

"You don't have the best body shape or magical energy for bearing children, I'm afraid. There's also the fact that the baby's scans are coming out oddly, and your magic keeps fluctuating. It's not unheard of, but most often precedes a miscarriage," their Healer said, in a perfunctory and almost cold tone. He handed Fleur a clipboard with some kind of diagram. Bill couldn't make sense of it, but that didn't matter, because Fleur looked shocked and upset and the Healer wouldn't stop talking.

"Could you give us a minute?" Bill asked, barely looking at him. He heard rather than saw the Healer leave.

Fleur looked at him with watery blue eyes and opened her mouth to say something— _I'm sorry,_ perhaps—then closed it again, and Bill knew it was because she couldn't apologize for it. She couldn't, shouldn't, didn't need to apologize because it wasn't her fault, and Bill silently tried to tell her he didn't blame her in the least.

"I love you," Bill said, a bit brokenly, a bit tiredly, and leaned down until his forehead touched hers. They kissed and Bill wasn't sure whose tears were on his cheeks. "It's your choice. What do you want to do?"

It wasn't unheard of to abort a struggling fetus, especially one whose magic had a high chance of harming Fleur's own. There was still enough time to do it safely and humanely. But they both wanted children and if Fleur was having problems, then this could be their only chance at having one biologically related to them both. Bill didn't want to imagine a life without children, but Fleur's safety came first, much as it hurt to think about losing this chance for a child.

"I want to try," Fleur replied, taking his hands in hers. "Whatever happens, I want to try."

.

Fleur's pregnancy went normally, as far as abnormal pregnancies went. She had no unheard of symptoms, and they had no near-misses with miscarriage. Fleur worked for the first three months until she began to feel too tired, but it was normal, if rare for her to tire so easily that early during pregnancy. She quit her Gringotts job in favor of writing the novel she'd always wanted to write, but never had time for. Bill worked standard hours and supported both of them. They continued living at Shell Cottage, where Fleur felt inspired by the air and the sea.

Fleur and Molly still argued, Harry and Ginny still wouldn't tie the knot, and Fleur and Bill still loved one another more than yesterday and less than tomorrow. Those were the best days, the halcyon days.

.

After three and a half months, they found out the sex of the child. They decided to name her Victoire, for victory, for Viktor, for conqueror. She would conquer chance, which now stood at only twenty percent on her survival, and she would emerge from the womb victorious. Fleur told Bill to stop being dramatic. Bill told her he was jealous of Fleur's best friend, after whom they were pseudo-naming their first child.

"Wouldn't it be better to name her Wilma, after William?" he teased.

Fleur pretended to puke. "We will not give her that sort of ghastliness to carry through life," she replied. " _Wilma._ Ugh."

"I'm terribly offended," Bill said through his laughter, but Fleur wouldn't budge.

.

One day after work, Bill bought a bouquet of flowers and made a dinner reservation at a nearby restaurant. Fleur had been feeling more energetic than usual today, and he wanted to surprise her.

Tears welled in her eyes when he presented the flowers to her, and she hugged him a bit too roughly and cried into his robes, but Bill took it in stride. He could handle emotional women after growing up with Molly Weasley as his mother.

They'd passed up their dinner reservation in favor of curling up in bed.

.

The closer Fleur came to her due date, with the magical scans coming up with better and better results, the higher baby Victoire's chances became, and the happier Bill and Fleur became in turn. At six and a half months, Fleur had a stomach the size of England, as she said, and the baby was completely healthy. The Healers were flummoxed as to why Fleur's magic was still acting oddly, but Bill barely paid attention. He didn't trust magical scans much, after his own experiences with them, anyway.

.

"Fleur," he sang as he opened the front door. "I have— Are you okay?"

Fleur was lying on the couch, covered in sweat and shaking. Bill ran to her and put a hand on her forehead. She was burning up. "Fleur," he yelled, and shook her. Her eyes slowly opened, but then they closed again.

In the next moment, Bill had already thrown half the box of floo powder into the fire and yelled for Healer Abley, their Healer for the last trimester. Fleur was seven and a half months along.

"What is it, Mr. Weasley?"

"There's something wrong with Fleur," was all Bill had to say for her to walk through the fireplace and into Bill's living room. She knelt beside Fleur and started muttering spells.

"We were afraid this would happen," she said with a grimace and Bill's heart stopped.

"What?"

"The child is altering her magic. I don't know how or why. We need to get her to St. Mungo's." She stuck her head into the fireplace. "I need an emergency team to outer Tinworth, Shell Cottage, William and Fleur Weasley residence. Pronto!"

In her state, Fleur couldn't be flooed or apparated, and she definitely couldn't be portkeyed.

"What can I do?" Bill asked uselessly.

Healer Abley looked at him, and through him, in a way. She was almost completely focused on Fleur, something Bill found both admirable and irritating.

"Floo to the hospital and wait in the maternity ward." Then, likely pitying him, she said, "I've been told praying helps, if you're religious, Mr. Weasley."

Bill nodded and waited for the team of Healers on broomsticks to come. He stared at Fleur and at little Victoire inside her, unable to think or pray or breathe. Soon he was pulled into the floo by Healer Abley and led to the maternity ward, where fathers and families greeted him warmly. Bill knew most of them, having visited St. Mungo's with Fleur many times by now.

"A little early, yeah, Bill?" Macmillan asked. His wife must have been in labor for hours by now; the flowers he was holding looked a bit sad. A bit wilted. Bill felt like a crushed flower, except so much more guilty because that was his wife in there and what if she didn't— What if she didn't make it? What if baby Victoire didn't make it? By Merlin, he hadn't met his child yet, but he'd named her and he'd felt her kick and he already loved her so much it hurt.

"A bit," Bill replied through clenched teeth, and soon the families around him stopped trying to talk with him. Eventually, each family left the waiting room as the new mothers gave birth, while Bill sat and waited and tried not to panic.

After a couple hours, when his initial panic had quieted into a blanket of despair, he paid two knuts to floo call his parents. Arthur and Molly joined him in the waiting room, sitting on either side of Bill and holding his hands like they had when he was a young boy. Bill had never felt so young or so scared in his adult life.

Finally, Healer Abley came into the room. Bill didn't know how long it had been since he saw her last—an hour ago? an eternity?—and only heard what she said with one ear.

"Are they okay?" he pleaded.

Healer Abley paused before speaking. "They're both alive. I'll take you to your wife's room. She's sleeping right now, and we won't wake her for another few hours. She needs her rest."

She led them to a small room down the hall, and Bill felt half the weight on his shoulders lift when he saw Fleur alive. Fleur looked terrible, worse than he'd ever seen her, but she was alive and safe. Bill collapsed into a chair by her side and took one of her hands into his own.

"What aren't you telling us?" his father asked.

Healer Abley's expression darkened. "I wish I didn't have to tell you this, but the child took Mrs. Weasley's—excuse me, Mrs. Fleur Weasley's—magic during the birth. She somehow absorbed it into her own. Mrs. Fleur Weasley effectively a squib now. There was nothing we could do."

"What about Victoire? The child?" Molly asked.

"Physically, she's healthy and normal for a premature birth. But for reasons that aren't clear to us yet, she absorbs magic through skin to skin contact. We were able to ascertain her condition before she was able to permanently harm the Healers and she doesn't seem to be able to pull magic without touch, but we still need to run tests to make sure. I'm sorry, but you can't hold her or see her just yet."

"When can we?" Bill asked.

"I don't know," Healer Abley said. "This is an undocumented phenomenon. I've never heard of something like this happening. I'm sorry. I'll need to report this to my superiors," Healer Abley said after Bill had already heard too much. "It needs to be documented. If something like this happens again we might be able to cure it in time."

"It won't," Bill said, not even needing to think about what had happened. The itch beneath his skin, almost unnoticeable for the past couple of months, had disappeared. Whatever it had been, whatever it had tried to do to him, it had found a much better target.  

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it won't. This is the only time. It's my fault. When I came back from Egypt, I came back with a curse."

"Your scans—"

"They were wrong," Bill said resolutely.

Healer Abley nodded and Bill wondered if she was just humoring him, like numerous Healers already had. It didn't matter either way; the damage was done. "Can she be cured?"

"Perhaps with the Department of Mysteries? Otherwise I don't believe so."

Despite knowing there were four other people in the room, Bill felt utterly alone.

.

They were allowed to keep the baby, Healer Abley told Bill a few days later. Allowed, like the hospital or the ministry had any say in their child's future. Allowed, like he and Fleur had the option of disagreeing, like they could turn in the baby and make a new one. Allowed, like there was something wrong with any other verb. After functioning on an average three hours of sleep per night, Bill didn't see fit to argue over her phrasing, but it was a near thing.

He couldn't ask Fleur's opinion on what to do with their child. Fleur was still in shock; she sat in her hospital bed, ate a few spoonfuls each day, and clutched her wand to her chest as though it would help her magic come back. Every Healer agreed that her symptoms were normal and understandable; despite the recent advances in medicine, there was a chance Fleur would never again function normally.

And despite everything, there was no way she would ever use magic again. Her magical core, something every witch and wizard considered sacred, had been burned and blackened until it was rendered unhealable.

.

"She can't be allowed near people," Healer Abley said as she handed Victoire Emily Weasley to Bill for the very first time. The baby was clothed in only a sheet made of dragon skin; the Healers were worried about her touch with anything thinner, but dragon skin baby's clothes were out of the skill set of most people. Besides, she would soon grow out of any clothes sewn for her. "You must not let her into crowded places, or any place where she may touch someone. There aren't any legal frameworks in place for what will happen if she ever takes someone's magic and they press charges."

"She won't," Bill promised. He wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't let that happen.

Because when he looked down at the child in his arms, trying not to shake from the weight of responsibility, he loved her instantly. The same eyes, the same face, the same little body that had taken his wife's magic stared up at him with blue eyes, blonde hair, and the most perfect array of features. She was as much a part of him as his heart. He couldn't let the big bad world have her. It was his duty as a father to protect her, but Bill didn't need duty when he had love.

"We've asked for a team of Unspeakables to examine her condition," the Healer told him.

"Do they need my Floo address?"

"They already know," Healer Abley replied.

Bill swallowed. "It's good to know my privacy is safe."

"Your privacy meant very little when we first thought your child's disease was the beginning of an epidemic," Healer Abley said, her gentle voice softening the words. "It didn't turn out to be infectious. But it could have."

There was nothing he could say.


	2. Fleur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for depression and suicidal thoughts.

Every morning, Fleur reached for the bedside table. It was a thoughtless action, a habit borne from the time of the second wizarding war, even though it had been won over a year ago. Sleeping with a wand had too much risk of snapping it, but for all her waking hours, it was in her hand. Fleur had been intent on living through the war, even though her chances of survival were lessened by being an Order member and her house a stop in a route of safe houses for muggleborns.

Now, she wondered if maybe, being less intent on surviving would have been for the better. Because when she opened her eyes and murmured _Lumos_ , no ray of light erupted from her wand. The room continued to be as dark as ever; no _Accio_ from her lips could shift the curtains.

Bill had asked her to stop, once. He'd tried to tell her there was no use in trying every day to do something she couldn't do. Fleur had pointed her wand at him—not a wand anymore, really, just a dead stick in her cold hands—and said the banishing charm in between her _Lumos_ and _Accio_ ritual. He never mentioned it again.

.

They came home a week after Victoire's birth, bringing home an air of defeat when there should only be victory. Like most newborns, Victoire was awake far too often while Fleur slept too much. It was hard to stay awake when grief plagued her every waking hour. It was only briefly dispelled by irritation: at herself for not being stronger, at her body for not rebounding quickly enough, at her magic for not fighting, at her child for being so loud and needy (like any normal child her age) when she'd already taken so much.

Fleur remembered her sister at her daughter's age; she'd been nine years old when Gabrielle was born. Their age difference hadn't been large enough for Fleur to have felt motherly toward Gabrielle, but she'd always tried to be the best older sister possible. Gabrielle had been beautiful. Fleur had cooed over her just as Gabrielle cooed over Victoire on her occasional visits, taking care to be shielded by dragon leather.

"She's so sweet," Gabrielle murmured, smiling at the child. "So much prettier than our cousin's children, yes?"

"Gabi," Fleur said reproachfully, though she had to admit, their snooty cousin's children had yet to grow into their looks. She rolled her eyes, and said, "Yes. She's beautiful."

There was something like pride in her heart, when she looked down at her child and consciously tried to forget the elephant in the room. Victoire had pale blue eyes and fine blonde hair. She was chubby, and her features would look different when her baby fat faded, but it was a given that she would be a heartbreaker. With Fleur's beauty, Bill's handsomeness, and a dash of veela blood, she would never have problems catching people's eyes. She was blessed, despite the curse inside her.

"And her magic," Gabrielle swooned. "Already having accidents. Even we weren't able to do anything until we were three." It was true; Victoire had only been days old when she realized she could get the softest blanket in the house to fly into her arms. They'd been worried about her hurting herself, but for now it seemed she was content with shifting blankets and toys with her mind and occasionally trying to get a bottle of formula to fly over. Those, Bill and Fleur carefully regulated and kept locked in the cold box, not trusting their precocious child to drink on her own.

Well, she does have enough magic for the both of us, Fleur thought. She didn't say it; it was hard enough to speak of it, and whenever she and Bill tried to talk it out, one of them ended up unable to continue. Gabrielle must've seen it on her face, because she added, "I'm sorry."

"What's done is done," Fleur replied.

But it wasn't that easy. Her magical core was completely destroyed, her magic now augmenting Victoire's. Her daughter was healthy and alive, but Victoire's victory was a loss for Fleur.

She tried to think of it as a gift. Mothers loved their children unconditionally; who was Fleur to resent her own child for something Victoire couldn't control?

(Human. She was blindingly, unfailingly, awfully human. And it hurt.)

.

In the back of her mind, she knew it was cruel.

It was awful, this feeling inside her, this hatred that wouldn't go away. Weeks ago, she could barely feel a thing; and now she was simply angry. She was tired of being angry and yet she couldn't stop.

She'd never cared that her husband was infected by a werewolf, or that her family carried veela blood, or that her third cousin was a squib. She'd always thought of herself as a kind, modern, accepting woman. She'd been wrong. There were some things she couldn't learn to deal with. She had voluminous books on forgiveness and St. Mungo's pamphlets on acceptance and a subscription to a wizarding radio channel about dealing with grief and nothing was going to help. Nothing was going to change the fact that her magic had been ripped out of her.

She was broken. She, who had competed in the first Triwizard Tournament in centuries, who had been chosen for it out of twenty extremely promising Beauxbatons witches. She, who had spent years finding balance between her pride in her heritage and her peers' wariness of her veela blood. Her veela charm had depended on her magic, and without it, no one would ever call her beauty ethereal or stare at her with a wide-eyed, star-struck gaze. Fleur hadn't always liked her veela powers—they were too wild, too uncontrollable—but they had been hers. She'd been young and bright and going places, and now she could only see the things she couldn't do.

She couldn't ingest magical potions; most used the drinker's innate magic to work, and now she was the same as any muggle or squib. She couldn't apparate, and now had to walk from room to room or house to store in order to get anywhere. Bill had suggested buying a car, but everything in Fleur's being balked at something so muggle. She was a pureblood of countless generations; how was she supposed to figure anything out about the muggle world?

She couldn't work at Gringotts, where goblins favored magical strength above all else. She couldn't work in the ministry, which was getting better about blood purity but still probably wouldn't accept a squib. She couldn't get a mastery in charms like she'd been idly planning to do after Victoire was old enough.

Her world had narrowed to Shell Cottage, and it was a prison with open doors.

There were some things she do now that she had magic. They all centered around Victoire: holding her, washing her, changing her clothes and soiled nappies, burping her, pressing a rare kiss to her soft cheek. Fleur and Bill made a great team in changing her diapers and cleaning her toys, all without Bill ever touching their daughter. But outside of satisfying Victoire's needs, Fleur couldn't bring herself to touch her daughter. Perfunctory gestures were one thing; forgiveness was another; and grief was present through it all. She had no enthusiasm for her child. She had enthusiasm for very little, these days.

Writing helped. During her pregnancy, Fleur had started a number of short stories and had ideas for longer works. She'd spent so much time off work, keeping her high-risk pregnancy from getting out of hand, that writing had become her eyes into the adventure-filled world outside. But now that she looked at it with new eyes, she knew she couldn't continue her old works. They were unmistakably magical; her heroines didn't spare a thought before lighting a _Lumos_ or shouting a _Cambiens_. And although her characters had always been able to do what Fleur could not, their actions now inspired sadness instead of hurt.

She burned her words in the dark of night, escaping her marriage bed when Bill was deep asleep. He would've only worried, and Fleur was tired of the fragility in his expression whenever he looked at her. He would reveal it to the therapist whose sessions Fleur rarely consented to attend, and she would have to talk about her feelings once again.

She knew her feelings; they weren't the problem. The problem was the world outside her head, the one that wouldn't let everything go back to the way it was two years ago. If she'd known what she knew now... She would've left Bill in a heartbeat. Fleur loved her husband, but the loss of magic had left a whole in her life that couldn't be filled by family or love.

Their couples' therapist gave them each a journal and asks them to write. Bill didn't use his, but Fleur covered hers with words she couldn't share with Bill. Words that half alarmed her with their hatred and anger, but mostly just released some of the pain that lurked inside her.

Grief followed her into her dreams, but sometimes, she received a reprieve. Sometimes, she was just a girl of eleven, learning magic for the first time. Her wand would warm in her hand and her spells would fly and it would be alright for a very short time. On those days, Fleur woke up with tears in her eyes. (Bill wouldn't metion it. Bill didn't mention a lot. Bill, who had always been a steady presence, a calming force, had lost the ability to give her comfort.)

The characters who replaced the burned ones were animals, squibs, and children whose magic was unpredictable and uncontrollable and wouldn't respond on command. Bill never saw a single word.

She wrote more often now, and not just her stories. She wrote letters to her family and friends, musings on life, memoirs from better times. Those letters were never sent, but on occasion, she would submit an essay to the Daily Prophet's writing section (page sixty-five, with an average of ten readers per issue).

Gardening, too, was something she found some enjoyment in. It forced her out into the sunlight, kept her face from becoming as white as a ghost's. The Fleur of a few months ago would've gasped in horror at her looks: her hair was wild from being rarely brushed, her nails were unpainted and long, her eyes were often red from tears. Her old self wouldn't have left the bedroom like this, never mind go outside. And yet there was a freedom in telling her ideas of propriety to screw themselves.

In the evenings, Bill sat in bed and read about finance and gold and goblin history while Fleur wrote. Her hands were almost always stained with ink now, and Bill went around casting mild cleaning charms on Victoire after Fleur touched her. Fleur forbade Bill from doing the same on her, not wanting to come in contact with magic now that she couldn't cast it.

.

She wasn't alone. Her friends from Beauxbatons sent letters. Her sister was only a floo call away. Even Viktor visited twice, though Fleur hadn't asked that he come.

Her parents had offered to move in or find a cottage nearby, but Fleur had said no. Sometimes, she wished she hadn't been so stubborn. With another two pairs of hands, she would've had to see Victoire even less. But it tasted of failure, to let her parents see how far she'd fallen.

She even had Bill, if she could bear to let him close again. Sometimes, when Victoire had fallen asleep and she and Bill fell into bed, she thought of the constant space between them and wondered. Their relationship had been ruined, though not through anything she or Bill had done. It could be rebuilt.

But even when Fleur stopped hoping for cure, stopped taking up her wand with dead eyes, there was no escape.

Had fate run its course a different way, Victoire would've been the apple of her parents' eyes. She would've been loved in a way that wasn't tinged with guilt or sadness. But it didn't.

.

When the first representative from the Department of Mysteries visited, they sent him away, citing their need to recover from the ordeal. Victoire was too young, too fragile. Even then, they knew it wasn't the last time he'd come by the hungry look in his eyes. The excuse only worked for the first month of Victoire's life; afterwards, they were told it would be a matter of legality. If Victoire wanted to continue living in the wizarding world, the department of mysteries would first make sure she wouldn't destroy it. Who knew, as its head wrote in his frequent letters, if one day her powers would grow and devour the magic of those in her vicinity as well as those who touched her?

"Maybe we could live with muggles? She could touch them, I think," Bill said, throwing out the newest letter with a grimace.

Fleur shook her head. "What if she touches a muggleborn?"

"I know." With a sigh, he added, "And she's a magical child. She won't thrive, living as a muggle."

"It'll be alright," Fleur told him. "We'll be with her every step of the way."

 _Watching her,_ Fleur didn't add. _Making sure what happened to me never happens again._

.

The next day, the first Unspeakable entered their home, forcing them to juggle care of a young daughter and the intense scrutiny of strangers. Soon, various Unspeakables came to visit and test and sample and try to understand their daughter. They had little care for what they interrupted and even less care for Bill and Fleur's sensibilities. They asked Fleur to help, of course, because wasn't she the only one who could touch the child? She could touch her daughter, unlike Bill, who sometimes stared at Victoire with a wistful expression and twitching fingers, she would not be harmed.

For the first couple months of Victoire's life, their home was an inn for a revolving stream of Unspeakables. Fleur couldn't tell them to leave when they claimed to have the safety of the wizarding world on their side, but after half a year of useless poking and prodding and taking notes with interchangeable inscrutable faces, she and Bill asked for a permanent placement. Just one competent person to do the job.

A couple weeks later, Unspeakable Pansy Parkinson knocked on the door, barging into Bill, Fleur, and Victoire's lives for the first time. On July 1, Bill opened the door, sighed at the Unspeakable robes, and ushered him into Victoire's room.

"A bit small, isn't it?" Pansy asked, referring to Victoire's crib. "She's not cramped?"

Fleur wondered at the size of Pansy's own former crib (and her ego), but only shook her head. She'd heard worse in the never-ending barrage of Unspeakables that flocked to her house like flies. "She's fine."

Pansy snorted. But later, when she saw the careful way their child had to be treated, she took them aside and said, "I'm going to find a way to help, alright?"

"Thank you," Fleur said, her tone perfunctory.

.

Pansy was a constant presence in their lives, practically a live-in nanny with how often she was there to keep an eye on Victoire and her powers. She was there when Victoire took her first steps, performing experiments in another room. She was there when they both needed a break, when they needed to leave the house, when the project was completed and Victoire was allowed to live in peace in the magical world. And she was there afterwards, because somehow, she'd become a friend instead of an intruder.

Pansy made Bill smile.

It was an irrational jealousy that took hold of her, and Victoire knew it. She and Bill hadn't had sex since a month before Victoire's birth, and yet he still cared for her, still continued to be faithful. He wouldn't destroy the future they'd built for lust, no matter how attractive and attentive the Unspeakable was. Fleur remembered the girl vaguely from the tournament; Pansy had been a constant, simpering shadow of the youngest Malfoy. Now, she'd grown up into her own person, and that person was everything Fleur wasn't. Magical, attractive, competent, able to go a week without breaking down in tears and hysterics.

Sometimes, she wondered if maybe, she should've just married Viktor when he'd asked. It would've spared her so much grief, even if she didn't love him. She'd never loved anyone like she loved Bill; she'd never hated anyone as much as she hated Bill, either. It was a misplaced hatred—Bill hadn't chosen to come home with a curse—but just as Bill bore guilt, Fleur carried anger in her heart.

She was only twenty-one years old, and she was tired of life. What was there to live for? What was there to want? How could something like this happen to her? It was unbearable, this thing that she'd have to bear for the rest of the life. How did people deal? How could muggles live without magic for all their lives and not grieve every day for how amazing they could be, if only they had been born different? How did they survive without having any kind of abilities? How did they live without starving, how did they warm their homes at night? And how could Fleur live as one, when she couldn't live as a witch? There were so many questions in her head, unanswerable ones. If only she could pull back time. If only, if only, if only. The world could burn (maybe, but maybe not). If only she could have her magic again. Victoire was beautiful and amazing and would grow up to be something more than Fleur's grief, but she no longer wanted to see it.

.

Fleur held on for four years.

2002 brought in a flurry of Weasley marriages, pregnancies, and births, all coming together around the time of Molly Weasley's birthday. Fleur had never liked her, all stemming from the fact that Molly hadn't liked her first, but sometimes she tried to have a good relationship with her mother-in-law.

And the birthday was a celebration to be remembered, as Molly's head in the fireplace told them, "I'll be happy to drag you three there myself!"

"It's not safe," Bill protested weakly, glancing at Fleur. But the excuse was weak, now that Victoire was old enough to know to never, ever touch anyone.

"Percy will be there with Molly and Lucy," Molly said. "Victoire and Molly will be in the same Hogwarts class. You might as well let them become friends now instead of having them meet in a couple of years."

"Victoire may not go to Hogwarts," Fleur tried.

"But isn't that Unspeakable of yours working on a shield for her? An invisible one to protect her from all angles? You told me so last week," she accused.

"It's not ready yet. It's still in its planning stages," Bill replied.

"Nevertheless, there's hope. Come, stay for a while. Give yourselves hope. I haven't seen you in months. You're like a ghost, Bill," Molly said, her voice the kind of soft and sad that hurt her husband the most. "And Fleur... please, come."

And with twin sighs of defeat, united temporarily, Fleur and Bill agreed.

.

She was happy that Bill was happy, Fleur told herself. It wasn't even that the Weasleys were bad; they were just loud and blunt and had so many children running around everywhere. Every Weasley (and almost Weasley, and Weasley-other-hyphenated-last-name) alive was there, celebrating the good year and the good years to come. Fleur tried very hard not to be a nundu.

She looked to the side, and noticed her daughter. Victoire was standing too close to another child, Molly Weasley, who was slowly reaching for a part of Victoire's uncovered face. Her face was the only part of her body that was uncovered, in fact, the rest in dragon hide.

"Stop!" yelled a voice, and for a moment Fleur thought it was hers, but it turned out to be Audrey's instead.

The two girls turned to the yelling. As they turned, a rubber ball hit Victoire in the side and she stumbled head-first into Molly.

Fleur's heart caught in her chest and she stumbled out of her chair and ran towards them, Percy, Audrey, and Bill at her side.

_No, not again. Please._

"Are you alright," Bill asked Victoire, having reached her first.

"Yes, Daddy," she replied, standing upright again.

"Is she alright," Fleur asked, nodding towards Molly, who was being asked over and over again by her parents if she was touched. Percy was clutching his daughter to his chest.

"I didn't touch her," Victoire said. "I didn't. She just tried to touch me."

"Vic, you know it happens either way," Fleur said, softly, touching her daughter's shoulder. Her voice was hollow, eyes full of grief.

"I need to get her to St. Mungo's to check," Audrey said, taking Molly's hand. "It'll be fine, love." But her voice betrayed her fears. Soon, the two left.

"I'm sorry, I never meant for that to happen," Bill told his brother.

Percy glanced at them, pained. "Losing her magic… it would be the worst thing to ever happen to her. Bill… I can't. I can't. Please, just leave."

"Alright," Bill said. He apparated alone, while Fleur took Victoire in her arms.

Once they were home, Fleur put Victoire to bed, telling her a short bedtime story in hopes of getting her daughter to doze off. It had been a long day. Within half an hour, Victoire was asleep, clutching a stuffed animal to her chest. And so Fleur left her.

.

2002 also brought the first Weasley divorce in nearly a century.

"I'm leaving," Fleur told Bill that night, after they put Victoire to bed and received a floo call from Bill's mother, saying Molly was alright. "I can see the love in your eyes when you look at her and at me. You're a good man. But when I think about spending another moment in this house, with her, with you, without my magic, I want to cry. I can't let this be my future, Bill."

"Just stay for a little while more," Bill asked. "Maybe…"

But there were no maybe's left for them. There hadn't been ever since they returned from the hospital all those years ago. They had never talked about having another child; Fleur could count the number of times they'd had sex since Victoire's birth on the fingers of one hand.

They'd wanted so hard for things to get better. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly.

Fleur took his hand in hers. "Not as sorry as I am."

It was stupid pride that wouldn't allow her to live as a muggle, but now she knew she had to try. She had to swallow the shame and loss and build something of her life, because she wasn't going to die for decades, and she couldn't imagine spending the rest of her time in Shell Cottage.

She left the following morning after a series of quick goodbyes, to Bill, whose heart felt like it was breaking all over again, to Pansy, who was still an Unspeakable but half outsider, half family by now, to Victoire, who didn't truly understand but cried all the same. She took nothing but some clothes and her notebooks, throwing out her old wand as she left.

She'd go to France, Fleur decided. Not to her parents—it wouldn't be any different there—but to a city where no one had ever heard the Weasley name. Somehow, she'd figure out how to live without magic. It would have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
